ANTH 1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Female Genital Mutilation, Public Sphere, Feminist Anthropology

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH 1002
• Professor: Eric Henry

Document Summary

Gender is partially attributed to biology, but not completely. Basis of gender doesn"t derive from biological facts (body parts) System that gives social meaning to that fact. Relationship between biology and gender: gender has to do with social roles and behaviour associate with different biological sexes. Enormous variation from society to society about social norms and gender roles. Cultural stereotypes of gender: men speak clearly, women don"t. Mead: characteristics of gender not based on their natural characteristics, but a set of social ideas. Pressure in many societies to distinguish between female and male. Sysgendered: conforms to normal gender behaviour in society; opposite of transgender. Gets us away from normalization or thinking that a certain behaviour is natural. Gender is an idea we have about men and women, that they"re very different from one another. To have this idea means to have an interpretation of spiritual world around us.